


I’ll clutch—and clutch

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Angst, Biblical References, F/M, Gen, Henry V - Freeform, Propriety, Romance, Theater - Freeform, flirtation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7831357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'd decided on a theatrical evening but there was still a dance to be had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll clutch—and clutch

“I’m flirting with you, Mary.”

“No, you’re flirting with disaster. And I wish you wouldn’t.”

They were in the far corner of the larger parlor, the farthest they could reasonably, properly occupy, during the theatrical evening she and Emma had worked so hard to organize. The performances were done now and the staff and patients healthy enough to attend and walk around were standing in small groups and enjoying the refreshments she and Emma and Samuel had managed to cobble together. Mary’s unofficial aide-de-camp, the ever-inquisitive Isaac Watts, had scoured the town and somehow brought back enough supplies for an adequate number of sweet tea-cakes and biscuits, though she could tell from Emma’s expression that they had utterly failed in reaching the bar set by the Green family for even an intimate family gathering, let alone a larger celebration. 

Since Emma and Alice were the only people at the evening with any idea of that bar, Mary was not unduly troubled. At least, not by that-- Jedediah had been especially lively and animated the whole night, even before he’d recited the St. Crispin’s Day speech from _Henry V_ with vigor and aplomb, to the great delight and approbation of the audience; none knew how piteously he’d bemoaned the lack of a velvet doublet, even when Mary pointed out Henry V would have not been exhorting his soldiers in full court dress, let alone full Tudor court dress, on the eve of battle in 1415. Anne Hastings had, as expected, wiped her eyes dramatically with a lace-edged handkerchief, and murmured, purposefully loud enough that all around her should hear, “Dear England, dear England!” It was hard to begrudge her that and Mary supposed she might truly be homesick though it seemed incongruous for brassy, unsentimental Anne. Mary knew she herself dreamt more of snow quilted fields, the silence of a January dawn, the viscerally satisfying sound of horses’ hooves on Boston cobbles, since she’d come to Alexandria. Home was a world away, a world that hardly seemed to exist anymore, though one day she must return—to what and with what, she could not imagine and had tried to stop trying. Jedediah did not make it any easier when he was in such a merry mood, his dark eyes bright, each glance at her a promise he couldn’t keep.

“You wish I wouldn’t—so you do recognize flirting when you hear it? Another unexpected talent in a erudite Baroness,” he said, again with that teasing tone, standing closer than he ought so she might unobtrusively brush his forearm, his wrist or hand with her own careful fingers if she wanted to, the temptation another coquetry. 

He’d gone on for a while about how she and Emma should consider having a ball at Mansion House, how sure he was that Captain McBurney would approve, when they were first planning the theatrical evening a few weeks ago. She’d known he thought primarily of the dance he had never had with her, when he was ill with his withdrawal during the Greens’ ball, that ruined blue silk dress and how it would have felt to be permitted to hold her in his arms, his hand at her corseted waist, the music a concealing veil for tender words he had thought so many times but never said aloud. She’d been lost with him, briefly, in that shared reverie but had shaken it off sooner, if with no less yearning.

“Stop it. Can’t you see—there can be no flirtation between us, nothing untoward, if I am to stay and be allowed to work here, if you mean to escape any… rumors, gossip that might reach your wife, even as far as California is,” she said and it cost her to mention Eliza, more than he would give her credit for, she could see that as his expression changed, hardened a little.

“That’s why—Christ, Mary, no one will think anything of it, you’re too used to Puritanical Boston… no one here would have thought anything of how I talk to you even before the War and during it? No one cares, no one is so concerned about some, some mild teasing at a party, only you pay it any mind,” he retorted.

“I shouldn’t then, pay it any mind—what you say, how you look at me? I hadn’t thought you were… trifling with me, but I stand corrected, Dr. Foster. That’s not what I thought there was between us, but I have misunderstood, overstepped. I shan’t trouble you about it again, but I must beg your pardon, I will return to my work now, these amusements are not for me,” she said, making sure she did not avert her gaze as she finished as she wished to, to make it clear to him, no matter how hard it was for her to do it, what she had thought and what she did think.

“No. Mary, no, that’s not what I meant, how it is… God damn it, you know what I mean, what you mean to me, how I want-- what I want,” he exclaimed, his hand sudden, warm at her wrist, his grasp firm, unequivocal. She wished it could be at her waist, drawing her closer to him, that his words would be lost against her neck, his mouth demanding, adoring at her throat, her lips, wishes she was shamed to admit to herself, had prayed over but could not renounce. If she did, what would she have left?

“Jedediah, I am not allowed to know, that is not something I may—It’s only, it’s very hard to listen to you, to see you thus, and know however much I want, I may never have, that I must find something else to do with what I feel,” she explained and this time, she did not make the effort to contain how she longed for him and what that longing did to her from her voice, her gaze.

“You, oh Mary, you shame me with your honesty and I lo--” he began, but she interrupted,

“Don’t say it, oh don’t, it cannot be unsaid, and then where will we be?”

He stepped closer but not so close that anyone would take notice and dropped her wrist as he lowered his head a little to speak very quietly and very seriously.

“I love you for it, I love you and that’s where we are. I don’t know where we’ll be but it doesn’t change what I feel for you, it cannot, nothing can. This War, this world is so much destruction, chaos, I will hold on to what I feel, I will hold it close as much as I wish to hold you, and we can only think of the day we have, maybe the next. Love ‘beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,’ and I suppose that must be enough for us.”

“I don’t think we, this, is what that verse is referring to,” she said.

“Well, even though you are a well-read Baroness, that doesn’t mean you have understood everything, especially in the Good Book. I will be Quaker as our Chaplain is and let the Word speak directly to my heart,” he replied, trying to let the least bit of levity color his tone, to help move them from where they were to where they must be.

“But you are Scotch Presbyterian, Jedediah—now shall you give up your faith to justify this?”

She sounded so young and earnest, so dear and downcast and had let her head drop under the heavy weight of her elaborately braided chestnut hair and the carved jet comb that was her only ornament. He lifted her chin with one finger and looked at her sweet, troubled face.

“I will turn heretic for you, Mary, if that is what it requires. But I have more faith in God, don’t lose yours over this. You know your Bible, what it tells us, ‘As for God, his way is perfect,” he said and let himself stroke her cheek just once before he stepped back and made a smart bow, a Union officer again.

“I will bid you good evening, Baroness von Olnhausen, and give you my most sincere gratitude for all you have done this night. You are to be commended,” he said as formally as he could, as far from teasing as he could be. She nodded at him, the most polite nod he’d seen from her, suitable for church service or a Boston ball, but the light was back in her eyes and she let the smallest smile show on her face.

“Thank you, Dr. Foster. I must see to the refreshments now, for I fear they have ‘eaten their honeycomb with their honey,’” she said and he knew they had settled it, from her tone, her look, the Song she had chosen to quote of all she might have said.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response to ultrahotpink's prompt "I'm flirting with you." It could follow "An antiquated Grace" though it doesn't need to. Jed and Mary both quote from the Bible, the King James version. I have decided to make Henry Hopkins Quaker here, as has been conjectured in some Tumblr conversations I've had. You only need to google St. Crispin's Day speech and it will pop right up, but it's the source of:
> 
> "...From this day to the ending of the world,  
> But we in it shall be remembered-  
> We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;"
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.
> 
> The point of view gets a little wonky at the end, but I am preferring to think of this as a shifting, hovering third person effect :)


End file.
